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Saturday, Apr 13, 2024
7 PM (115 mins)
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BAMPFA
Guelwaar
Digital Restoration
Abou Camara, Marie Augustine Diatta, Mame Ndoumbé Diop, Yama Diedhiou,
“A work of wry sophistication” (Janet Maslin, New York Times), Guelwaar has the makings of a political farce in the spirit of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Death of a Bureaucrat. The body of a murdered political activist suddenly goes missing from the morgue. The police discover that his corpse has accidentally been carried to a neighboring village and given a Muslim burial (the dead man was Catholic). The attempts of his family to retrieve the body nearly escalate into a holy war. But farce Guelwaar most decidedly is not. Ousmane Sembène transforms his simple narrative into a complex, stirring examination of the legacy of colonialism in Africa. “Exceptional, tremendously moving. . . . Sembène is a little like Noam Chomsky in that he consciously sets out to compile a kind of counter-history, a corrective to the official record” (Georgia Brown, Village Voice).
FILM DETAILS
Screenwriter
- Ousmane Sembène
Cinematographer
- Dominique Gentil
Language
- Wolof
- French
- with English subtitles
Print Info
- Color
- DCP
- 115 mins
Source
- Janus Films
Event Accessibility
If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 642-1412 (during open hours) with as much advance notice as possible. More information on accessibility services.